Temasek:
"A Nervous boy from another town, with a nervous laugh and a concentrated frown"

Friday, 18 February 2011

The Original Emo-tional singers

Ok let me kill my credibility for a bit and talk about what I call EMO-tional singers ... and what exactly am I referring to? Well, those singers (by and large female) who are so overwhelmed by the emotion and content of the performance that they start to cry. Let me clarify ... I don't mean fake tears squeezed out on cue every night of the performance ... (Janet "Miss Jackson if you're nasty"! I'm looking at u!) I mean a genuine emotional response to the moment, usually accompanied by a dramatic "turning away from the microphone" flourish, but anyhoo. Its something you see less of nowadays in these autotune-wireless mic-lipsynching times.

I was watching vids of the Brit awards on youtube when I came across one of Adele performing "Someone Like You" from her new CD "21". Now, Adele is a big fan of the old acoustic performance, I think mainly because she can actually sing and has some pretty decent material. Anyways, towards the end of the performance at the Brits she cracks up and has to look away ... bless!! Whether its pure artifice, or a genuine reaction, I don't care! My little gay heart cannot resist a big number!!!

I have a soft spot for Adele. I love popstars who drink and smoke and are guileless about their success. I'm not sure if her new love for Americana will resonate in the same way with me, but her debut album 19 will always remain a classic.

My good friend RA has a brilliant blog which is so effective in its simplicity (here, now and always..). He has posted a few videos of EMO-tional singing in action and I hope that he won't mind me pilfering. Because this clip of Amy Winehouse is A-mazing!!! You barely see her face and she pretty much talk/sings her way through the song without much regard for quantizing, but wow this packs a real punch!!

And as these are both strong female british voices, we have to do due provenance and go back to earlier times to the Emo-tional singer par excellence, Dame Shirley Bassey.